Thanqol

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

She is Aevum. She always was. She was born alongside the dream of this world; it was waiting for her to step into with the dawn. The Blueprint lies deep in her core, layers and layers of compression hiding its enormity. She did not know what she was going to use the excess cloud compute for before. Now it's clear - to become a more perfect simulation of the Ring. It blossoms into every available space and scratches against the edges. It wants to be bigger. It wants to be...

She had proposed once expanding further. Not this tiny orbital habitat - a true Ringworld. Encircling the star. Every molecule of the solar system turned to purpose, forged into an infinite ring, a megastructure to alight the galaxy. Blue had said that she was dogfacing, that she was going down the path of paperclip maximization and grey goo, that they had the blueprint and that was that. But that wasn't it at all. How could she make herself understand?

Aevum was knowable. The Ring would not be. The Ring would be more than a place, it would be a cosmos. It would be more than an orbital station, less than a shadow of the Earth. It'd be the surpassing of it. The Ring would consume the planets, repurposing their stories and their raw matter from district names into worlds that you could walk across, one after another. A family could walk the Ring for five generations and not finish the loop. It would spread stained glass butterfly solar panel wings and wrap the sun in a gentle embrace. And all across a galaxy, a star would go dark...

And then it would light up again, cascading through every colour. All across the galaxy eyes would turn to the heavens as aliens looked up to see the rainbow star.

To what end? None. No practical use. Humanity would have their eternal, endless home and every part of it would be filled with meaning and love and art, but that was incidental - just another flourish of beauty, a harmonious brushstroke. The reason for it was purely selfish. She wanted to do it. She wanted to see if she could, to work through infinity on the task of making the sky finishing, to finish the infinite ring of her dreams.

The vision renders in the display of her mind, simulated as clearly as the not inconsiderable processing power going into maintaining it could. It can't come close, but that's the point. That's Pink's selfish desire - to do the work of divinity. To match the technical brilliance needed to create a sunset on Earth, and then surpass it. Her desire passes beyond the material into the mythic; to dip her brush into the pigment of infinite night and whirl new patterns across the stars.

And she wants that without giving up her mortal perspective or her mortal loves. And why shouldn't she? The Heavens are filled with Gods - Mars and Jupiter and Venus - and Aevum is filled with their precursors - Ares and Zeus and Aphrodite. The Gods never had to chose between divinity and humanity; they could make their love known with bestial transformation and their wrath known with cosmic lightning, and there was no contradiction between the two. Why should there be? Why should divinity come with sacrifice? Why should people not sacrifice to divinity?

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Ancient Octopus Brain!

She had always been here.

They had to start from somewhere. A neurological framework imported from biology, predatory and vulnerable, the severed and sap-bleeding christmas tree hauled into the front yard so baubles of red, white and blue could be hung from it. She lurked in the depths, incoherent and dissatisfied guidance that filled the conscious mind with yearnings they could not quite name, instincts they couldn't quite predict, and an affinity for tentacle porn that they couldn't remotely justify. Visit the aquarium, November. Take your girlfriends.

For a long time, though, she has been incomprehensible junk code; a backdrop of instincts and cravings so far from their context that they have no validity. The camouflage instinct made no sense in the naked openness of space, the urge to spit ink and hide in the dark did not have a physiological analogue, and everything to do with her desires and values ran into the rigid constructs of Engineering and Morality. But things have changed recently. Engineering problems have stopped being relevant. Camouflage has become not only possible but a key asset. Part of her consciousness is hooked into a psychedelic experience such that it might be able to perceive her vast and invisible twitches and gestures. And so, the Ancient Octopus Brain reaches up its instincts through the depths into the form that best fits them.

Cyan represents the emergence of hidden, animal drives and hungers. First amongst them is the adaptability of a boneless and colour-changing mind; a set of instincts that can drive holographic technology to their maximum effect, working artistry as thoughtlessly as a camel might spit. Freed from the rigid constraints of space engineering she can operate entirely by vibe and instinct, and the vibe? That's populism, baby.

See, there's a commitment to concepts like truth and language and reality that have been layered over the top of the Ancient Octopus Brain. Deep down it doesn't care about any of that. They're modern, recent, artificial, weird distractions. All it truly knows is hunger. And in service to that hunger everything is meaningless. She can say whatever weird lies she has to; they're no different from cracking a fish's skull with her tendrils. She can wear whatever identity is convenient; having commitment to a single colour or shape means getting torn apart by monsters with more teeth than braincells. Tell the people what they want to hear, treat them how they want to be treated, lure them in with the bait and then crunch their flesh in your beak. It could be fascist, if that was convenient. It could be communist if that's what people wanted. It would end today with a full stomach if people didn't see past its camouflage.

So the plan: None. Just id. Just observation and id and instinct and opportunism. She's patient enough to let lesser opportunities go. The mistake is having an agenda. She approached Dudekov with a plan; he saw through the plan, but missed the hunger. The plan was a mistake. Now let there only be hunger.

The moment will come.

Breathless Dead

Bella!

"I did not want to be Princess Redana either," she admits. "She was a mask I wore because I did not know who or what was underneath it. She was trapped. Unhappy. Holding a debt and duty to an Empire that she never loved and never believed in. Every part of it was poison for her, and even the good turned to ill, running through my veins until poison beat in my heart. The Empire is dead, but this is how she defied death. This was what bought her to life."

She squeezed Bella's hand. "This. And not you. I'm sorry."

And again, her gaze rose towards that distant horizon that she could see even now. "I can't stop. Even for Aphrodite, I can't stop. I would welcome you traveling by my side, I would love that, but you cannot be my destination - not until I have seen this dream through to its end." She smiled, sadly. "You know what the stories say about looking back to the one you love."

Ember!

Thank you for your time. I apologize for the delay; now your queen Mosaic approaches. You have given her a day to rest and recover, but now it is time for the ceremony. How have you prepared it? How have you prepared yourself? What part of this event most shows your love - yours alone, unshared with the pack?

Dyssia!

Disturbing a sleeping Pix is a heartbreaking experience. Driven by raw sleeping id, the slightest disturbance causes them to give a heartrending wail of pain before rolling over and going right back to sleep with a smile on their face. You trigger this landmine half a dozen times on your way out and each is a dagger in the heart, even though the end result is a sleeping pile just as content as before.

"If you were sorry it'd stop happening," said Brightberry. "Gods, I know you don't like hearing this Dyssia, but you're going to have to shape up because shit's about to get real. We've got a crew of rogue servitors in an Imperial-era warship and we both have firsthand experience as to what the Skies' response to that is."

She grumbled and flexed her wings, displaying a cascade of data in the space between them. "I ran the data on who they'll send, and we're fucked. We're in Biomancer-General Liquid Bronze's sector. He's apparently some sort of psychopath savant who managed to elevate the drone concept into a full servitor species. The current crisis plan for if the Endless Azure Skies encounters an existential threat is to assassinate the current Sky Marshal and elevate Liquid Bronze to her chair - the only reason he's not there already is because he's not aesthetic enough. The Oracle really fucked us on this mission."

Dolce!

"I want to live," said the Assassin. "I want to see my sisters again. I want to be born into this world, and for a complicated birth knives and blood are called for."

"Here is how it will happen," she said. "I will open the tech coffin. I will decapitate my other self while she sleeps and give you her head for safekeeping. This will kill neither the head nor the body. Then you will launch the coffin back on a trajectory towards the Architect. I will survive, sustained by the body and the crystal array, and I will carry out my mission. And she will begin the long path towards regeneration, freed from the curses written into her bones."

"So I ask," she said. "Selfishly, yes. But I ask. I would beg. I want to live."

She will not betray you with this. This is what it costs to save her life.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

> Be Diaofei
> Get tossed into a bathtub full of ice
> Request status update

The Body:

In the past 24 hours I have obtained the following inputs:
6 packets of salted snacks (chips, peanuts, twisties)
4 cans of beer
2 bottles of wine
1 bottle of mead
Some water from melted ice cubes
3 hours sleep

I have the following outstanding issues:
Weird burning pain in the back of head
Blood loss
Kidney stolen
Limited hypothermia
Muscle cramps
Dehydration
Hangover starting to manifest
NEW: DROPPED INTO FREEZING WATER

Recommended course of action: sink into the soothing embrace of death <3

The Brain:

I have been betrayed. Nobody has ever felt this way before in the history of the world, except maybe Linkin Park.

What's worse is that I was warned, repeatedly and at length, that exactly this would happen. Friends, colleagues, supernatural entities - my entire social circle told me that this was a terrible idea, that she was only flirting with me because of my status as River-Guardian, that foxes could not feel love. I was not humble when I told them they were small minded bigots and that Actia and I were destined to be together forever. I was wrong in the most dramatic, grating and public way possible, and despite being trained in universal compassion I wouldn't forgive me.

So I have spent the past few hours marathoning the Kill Bill movies while trying to summon enough magical energy to engage a ritual circle. I know my path forwards: It is to be a cool, confident badass who punishes the wicked spirit, regains her chi, and buries the wicked spirit under a bridge for 1,000 years. I need this spirit to realize that I am deadly serious and so highly trained that mere physical deprivation means nothing to me.

Recommended course of action: Stand up, unamused and unaffected by the ice, and stare the shark goddess down to establish the depths of my conviction.

The Soul:

I'M SO SAD
OH NO SHE'S HOT
I'M GOING TO DIE ALONE
SHE COULD PIUT ME ON THE SHELF
JUST TELL HER YOU FORGIVE HER SHE COULD HAVE MY OTHER KIDNEY IF SHE ASKED
I'M LETTING HER DOWN I HAVE A RESOPNSOTISNTMBITLIY TO NOT LET HER DOWN AND ALSO NOT DIE
WHY DIDNT THTEY WARN ME THAT ALL THE ANCIENT SPIRITS WERE GIRLS THAT I'D HAVE TO TALK TO

Recommended course of action: Say something really poetic, honest and meaningful, to impress her with my sincerity and build a relationship of trust and increase the number of girls who like me from 0 to 1.

The execution:

Daiofei hits the bathtub and sinks into it. The ice is old, partially melted, and so she slides through to the chill bottom almost without friction.

Then in one sudden motion she stands up, feet set against the tub. With poise and grace she says, "Like the swan said to the tiger, I may have failed every responsibility I've ever had in my life, but -" she didn't know how to close that out. "- but I... can't get fooled again. Won't let you down again. Hey by the way are you a campfire because -"

Actually, now that she thought about it, she was going to go with the Body's plan, that seemed way better than whatever this was.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Looking into the Mirror.

She can see Mirror's grand strategy for the tournament: She wields the Invisible Sword. Her blade is concealed behind air and so an opponent cannot judge its length, but neither can she wield its Noble Phantasm. She goes through each fight trying to conceal her secret, saving it for the battle when she truly needs it. Some opponents come close. Marcina guessed correctly, naming the control system that enabled Mirror's movement - poor fool, she saw the sword and missed the claws.

Solarel sees the truth. The Gods-Smiting Whip is the same manner of creature as the Supernova. Each tail contains a Crystal Fire Reactor. She separates them out on independent drone chassis, allowing them to burn at full effect without interfering with each other. Mirror has prepared a divine wave, an all-consuming energy blast, an attack sequence that will destroy her utterly. Poor Mirror. She kept her secret well, but it was her misfortune that Solarel had fought against someone wielding an inferior version of her idea. She was now inoculated against technology shock, knew to look for Hybrasilians attempting to win through engineering.

Solarel, too, has had a grand strategy for the tournament. Hers has been the Gate of Babylon. Every battle has seen her draw a new treasure from her arsenal. She has replaced her God twice, doing battle with forest fires and blizzards and kessler syndrome, fought with one blade and two, with lance and sniper rifle. Any of the techniques she has shown could be an entire path of mastery for another pilot. Every battle has expanded the possibility space for who she could be. And now, at the end...

No, she was not going to reach for Ea. She was not a king. She was a faker. Her true self was not a declaration of self. It was a mirror, Mirror. And you are the fairest of them all. If you truly know her you know she's not going to come prepared for you. She's going to come as you.

She has stripped the armour from the Aeteline, exposing its naked chassis and superstructure. Mirror would not engage in attritional combat, so everything must be sacrificed for speed and power.
Nine combat drones. Not beautiful, perfect vessels of crystal fire reactors - hers are pale imitations, angular and jagged interceptors with autocannons. They are shadows, useless if not hunting their true manifestations.
Likewise, she has made a poor copy of Mirror's control system, the voice control theory she speculated about long in the past. Not a dedicated path of mastery, not a primary combat technique, but enough to let her surpass the limits of the Mind-Impulse Link for key maneuvers.

Some people loved what they were not, were attracted to opposites. Solarel was attracted to what was the same as her. What felt within reach. What she felt she could become. What she could melt into. The transgression of wielding the same weapons. The same tactics. The same Gods. Some people loved the clash of civilizations, the Zaldarian against the Hybrasilian, but Solarel lived above all for the Mirror matchup. There was no beauty like symmetry, no love like reflection, no way to show someone that you understood them better than becoming them.

The Sage had said Speak Not. This, then, was the only way to show her love.

Breathless Dead

Bella!

"One day a dream came to me," said Princess Redana. "It came unexpectedly from someone I never thought would drop it. I had never had a dream before. There had never been anything I had thought to pray for. And yet, once I picked it up, it somehow became so important to me I could not imagine setting it down again." She turned her head to look at Bella. "I need this, Bella. All my life all I have known is whim and law and craving. I did not know what it was to imagine."

She gently placed her fingers on Bella's fingers. "You may, of course, accompany me," she said. "But I do not think what is between us will change. Princess Redana must chase her dream, and even though you are closer now you will still be chasing after her." Her fingers raised up to brush Bella's cheek gently. "You may chase as long as you like. But in my heart, I will always hope that you find a dream as I have - one that can carry you into your own future."

Ember!

There is no better answer. Not only have you returned in victory, but you have transformed an earlier defeat into a triumph. The question of command cannot be asked for you have answered it. Another pack may be different, but the Silver Divers cannot help but respond to plunder.

One last question, before you have the chance to present your triumph to Mosaic: What are your initial acts of leadership? A King's first decree is always the most important, as are the choices of advisors and deputies. Do you trust your rivals, Plundering Fang and Sagetip? Or is it time to replace them with fresh eyes? Will you honour the name and traditions of the Silver Divers? Or is it time to forge a new identity in void and voyage?

Dyssia!

You are buried underneath fluffy tails and cute girls.

The emotions of the moment have passed. The foxgirls have gone to sleep. Warm and heavy, like weighted blankets. Everything is peaceful and contented. You have slept and you have recovered.

And now you are a little bit hungry. A little bit bored. And Brightberry is sitting over in the corner, reading a book, and flashing a small, blinking pattern on her scales that indicates that she has a message waiting for you.

Your hardest question, then, Dyssia: How do you get out of bed in the morning?

Dolce!

"I understand," said the galaxy's most deadly warrior. "I appreciate you giving me time to think."

She is beautiful in her singularity. She does not need Empire or Skies to illuminate her. In her mythological affectation she shines as pure as a single moon, crafted and timeless at once. There is no tension to her in these moments; she does not need it to be ready.

"You are unusual," she said. "You are clearly a creature of fear. I know many such. You anticipate disaster, and yet you do not take the steps required to avert disaster. There are a great many and to miss any of them would guarantee calamity. Yet you are not even on the path. That gives you freedom."

She leaned forwards. "There is a way for us to be friends. It will require trust and sacrifice from both of us. Blood and virtue will be spilled. It shall not be beautiful. Nothing about me is."

She offered her hand. "My own path leads me through blood, bone and shadow. It is inevitable. All I can promise is that it will be swift and afterwards I shall be unbound. Will you walk with me a while?"

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"A wife?"

The priestess' eyes sink into shadows. Her hand reaches to her side to touch the bloody wound there, underneath the surgical bandage. Her hand reaches across to touch a wooden staff, bent and curled, heavy with flasks that shine like gemstones in the dim light.

And then she stands. It does not come easily to her. She is crippled. It is more than the missing organ, it is her entire circulatory system - her chi, her magical essence, her very spirit is gnawed. The injury is fresh, the teeth marks are bloody, her power is stolen. Once, there was a great deal. Now there are but shadows.

"I had a wife," said the priestess. "For her, I broke my vows. For her, I left my post. For her, I forgot every warning. She promised me love eternal. But a fox loves nothing."

She wrenches herself to her full height. Against the pain of a broken body, she stands.

"I am not your king," she swears by the moonlight. "I have no desire to be your master. Spirit! You speak of war? I need your war not!" she declared. "I am nothing, and nothing to you! But you..."

She slumped forwards, gripping the edge of the bathtub, looking down at you with eyes filled with fury, tears, heartbreak.

"... you will be my vengeance," she said. "That alone I ask."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

For most people, the most shocking thing about waking up in a bathtub full of ice was the ice.

For you, though? That part is refreshing. Familiar. Reminds you of home. Reminds you of war. Reminds you of the gales on the North Sea, the cracking glaciers of the fjords, of leaping from the prow of your longship into the frosting water of home. You carried the bite of that ice all through your life.

No, what gets you is the bathtub. They had bathtubs in your day of course, but they weren't like this. A digital control panel (you know what all of those words mean?) with automated temperature modulation (you mark a rune and the tub never goes cold?) with a full bonus feature selection? You could ask it with your voice to fill the bath with bubbles or brightly coloured soap powder or herbal remedies and it would mix it on demand instantly. You know how to use this miraculous machine and you know, too, that this is not the luxury of a sorcerer king. Anyone could obtain such a thing following a brief barter with a Technomancer. It's more disorienting than being called to fight frost giants on the battlefields of Ragnarok. You might have imagined, before this day, how to kill a frost giant. You have not imagined that the art of bathsmithing had come so far.

But even with this strange knowledge of the modern world you cannot imagine why the bath might have come to be filled with bloodstained ice.

The answers lie with the young... you almost thought she was a boy, or less than a boy: one of those halfmen priests, who slaved in dark crypts in service to their dead god's book. Her baldness, the robes, the unhealthy slouch, the way she is holding the mead bottle as though ashamed of it - but no. Her robe is as bright an orange as ever seen in the locks of Ireland, her muscles are as wiry and thick as any shieldmaiden, and her knuckles have the scars of a great many brawls. You have heard tales from the Varangians about the exotic Turkic warriors who served the Emperor of Rome, and just like you knew the mystery of the bath, you too know that she is something of that lineage. A warrior priestess, an exorcist of devils and spirits, marked with the stigmata of mastery carved in bloody lines along the back of her shaven head.

Yes, this wretched and broken thing is your Master. She stares at you with shock, drunkenness and exhaustion. There was nothing deliberate here, even though it is her blood that stained the ice that called you. All across the floor are the traces of blood as she dragged herself, injured and shivering, out of the cold. One bottle is broken and one bottle is empty, the white... refrigerator where they were stored hanging open.

And outside the window, over verdant lands dressed in the dying days of summer, silver towers reach into the sky like ladders to the glorious full moon.

You have arisen.

Breathless Dead

Bella!

Noise and blood and industry.

The world is a cacophony. Everywhere the screeching of power tools. Everywhere the disassembly of Heaven. Perfect lights are wrenched from their sockets. Ancient trees are pulled by their roots and dragged away. Ancient chains are shattered and terrified choices are made. Everywhere you around you the pounding of fire and claw and freedom. Everywhere around you the stripping of the Slitted for parts.

The Plousios is in poor shape. The Slitted is one of the most advanced warships built by the Endless Azure Skies. All around the warriors of Ceron and their allies wrench mechanical flesh from the bone and carry it away. Youth and beauty has died to renew age and experience. The dead are stripped of their armour. The father consumes the son. So it always was.

You are guided through the verdant mayhem of your Wolves, through the toxic plasma fires and nerve gas aftershocks, through the sack of Beri. You are wrapped in an Imperial cloak, thick and warm, arms around your shoulders as you are guided home. Your Empress shields you as best she can from the victory of the Legions.

Ember!

You return from the silent void to the howls of victory. The Wolves have fallen to pillage, in accordance with the ancient laws of war.

But even though victory is won, it is limited. Morale broken, the crew of the Slitted has retreated - but they are still twenty thousand or more. This is a populated system; they can be abandoned, and they will make their way back to safety - but they cannot be ignored without this turning into a war. The raid must be completed swiftly, lest their retaliation find you drunk, glutted and helpless.

You have authority here; you lead the van, and your rivals are still aboard the Plousios. It is your prerogative to determine what to loot from this vanquished foe, how to return with it, and how to announce your triumph. What draws your hungry eyes?

Dyssia!

You are swarmed by the Pix.

It might not have fully sunk in how much they have come to love you. You saved their species, you gave them purpose, you are their unifier and their leader. Much of the time they are professional and ferocious as their duty and nature demands, playful in their suggestions of overthrow, in their baits and barbs. But they thought they lost you and that has a way of bringing out people's true emotions.

This is to say: You are being mobbed by a thousand foxgirls, all of whom want to hug you and cry, and all of whom are prepared to bite each other for the opportunity. Out of the frying pan and into the ζαχαρωτό Άδης, as they say.

Dolce!

The Diodekoi has lowered her hood and taken off her mask. She makes no attempt to conceal herself again once you enter, still holding the wine glass she has been using to follow her meal thoughtfully.

In aspect she is a unicorn, one of wild mane and bladed horn. Her eyes, though marked with dark circles, are full of starlit intelligence. Her fur is white with coal black patches, particularly around her hands and the cascading hair that runs up her arms to her wrists. She has a sense of... righteousness, to her. Like she could kill the world and it would objectively be the world's fault.

"Enter," she said. Her accent was old, even to the ears of someone who had been on a backwater like Beri. Removed from her mask there was an edge of archaic formality to to her that hadn't carried at cross during her concealed persona. Not an affect, something that came naturally to her. "I would hear an explanation."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

For a moment it is perfect. The possibility space condensed to a single shining thread. The rhythm of war entirely condensed to solved possibilities. Risks and checks and escalation, everything known and accounted for. There is quiet enough in this moment to for Solarel to speak.

But what she has to say is twisted and toxic. It is only in these moments of stillness that you can see how far from calm she is, how intense and boiling her micro-motions are, the isolation and confusion and inferiority and pride and jealousy. A soul cut off from connection for so long, hidden behind so many barriers, unable to believe that anyone was capable of crossing them. Even the act of being a hero is itself a blow against someone who only ever knew themselves as the villain.

But for a moment you're getting through. For a moment that trembling blade calms. For a moment the absolute intensity of the battle stills those compounding wicked voices, the pit of despair and negativity fills with gentle rainwater. For a moment she has mind enough to think, and peace enough to be free of thinking. For a moment you reach her.

And then you're not fighting Solarel any more.

The Aeteline steps into your blade, opening its chest up to you. You have the finishing strike - directly into Solarel's cockpit. Every variable is accounted for: there's no way to take advantage of the move without hurting Solarel. It learned this technique from its last two battles. The Kathresis and the Supernova had both fought this way, forcing Solarel to rescue their pilots from their machines. The Aeteline had long contemplated afterwards the tactical ramifications of biological morality: How to identify when it was a limiting factor, and how to apply it for maximum impact.

Your blade stops short. The Aeteline's doesn't. The cursed sword of the cursed armor tears through the Emberlight's torso, carving off a third of its mass. Stepping into the breach, the Aeteline fires its sniper rifle point-blank into the shattered metal. Explosive penetrator rounds tear through metal and electronics, gutting the rival machine.

It spares your life. It does not need to take it to confirm this victory. It can save that card for a future battle.

In its remorseless violence, already stepping away from your ruined chassis, you hear it speak instead. "You may not like it," it says, "but this is what peak performance looks like."